"(...) the great round wonder (...)"

"Salut au Monde!" in "Leaves of Grass"

Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

"(...)What do you see Walt Whitman?Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?
I see a great round wonder rolling through space,
I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, graveyards, jails, factories, places, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads, upon the surface,
I see the shaded part on one side where the sleepers are sleeping and the sunlit part on the other side,
I see the curious rapid change of the light and shade,
I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as my land is to me. (...)"